The Tour de France is Ruined

I haven't even had time to read the rest of the news this morning because of the latest announcements by Tour organizers, that people on this Spanish doctor's list are now under investigation for blood doping.  According to the rules established after the 1998 Festina scandal, any rider under investigation must be barred from the Tour.  I can understand that, since you don't want some rider under investigation, win the race, and then the investigation finds that he has been doping.  Until the doping culture is gone from cycling, guilty until proven innocent will be the rule.  But because of that rule, the number 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers in last years Tour will not be competing.  Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, and Francisco Mancebo are barred.  Under the strict rules of ejection due to a doping investigation, their teams cannot replace those riders.  Instead of nine riders, they will only have eight.  Mancebo just announced his retirement from the sport.  Because of that rule, the number 5 finisher from last year, Alexandre Vinokourov, might not be able to race, even though his name is not on the list.  His former team, Liberty Seguros, lost its main sponsor because of the investigation, and became Astana-Wurth.  But because so many of that cobbled-together team's riders are on the investigation list, they might not even field 6 riders, which would automatically bar them from competition.  Vino could not even get onto another team because the other teams with barred riders could not put him on the team under the ejection rules.  Another black eye for the sport, but this is what happens when chemistry catches up to the cheaters, everyone pays, as it should be, so that we can use peer, economic, and public pressure to root them out.

Part of me still wants to apply the innocent until proven guilty rule, especially for the guys implicated, but swear they have never met this doctor: like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.  But even Bjarne Riis, Basso's team manager knows what's at stake:

I think it's a huge blow for everybody.  I'd rather be here because Ivan has won the tour. Right now it's not the case.  It's a hard situation for all of us, but this is life. But you have to stand up and face it.  It's easy to sit down and cry, but you have to be responsible for your own life.  The only thing I want to do is be responsible for my team.  I have no other choice.

He has no other choice, but to protect his team and cycling.